The chilling night when Essex drowned

JANUARY 31, 2013 will mark the 60th anniversary of England’s worst peacetime disaster. On that cold winter’s night in 1953 a wall of water 10 feet high surged down the North Sea and, driven by hurricane force winds, hit the east coast killing 307 people. The county worst affected by the tragedy was Essex, where 120 perished as the sea flooded their homes.

Volunteers go to work on securing Essex’s sea wall after it was breached []

Despite more than 300 miles of man-made defences to protect the land, the sea was triumphant. It smashed through sea wall fortifications across the coast and burst into homes while people slept.

The 1953 Essex Flood Disaster: The People’s Story tells many of the flood survivors’ stories for the very first time, capturing the devastating impact on ordinary people.

As the torrent of water breached the towns and villages of Essex the telephone lines went down and no flood warning was passed along the coast. However, the country had been on standby throughout the war years and immediately leapt into “blitz” mode.

Families left their flooded homes, often with nothing more than the clothes they stood up in, but within a few hours rest centres were set up with staff in position to offer warmth, food and clothing. A picture emerges of survivors who prevailed against unimaginable adversity with bravery and determination.

Despite more than 300 miles of man-made defences to protect the land, the sea was triumphant. It smashed through sea wall fortifications across the coast and burst into homes while people slept

Among the survivors to tell their stories of that terrible night was Peggy Morgan, then a young mother living in a bungalow on Canvey Island. She turned over in bed and flopped her arm into icy cold sea water.

She frantically woke her husband and five-year-old son Dennis and the family swam out of their flooded home.

With gale force winds howling around them they clung to each other on a shed roof for hours. Young Dennis, in words that would haunt Peggy all her life, cried again and again: “Mummy, I’m so cold.” Her reply was always: “I know darling, I’m trying to keep you warm.”

However, by dawn the next morning, the cruel sea had taken the lives of Peggy’s husband and her only child and she did not speak of the tragedy again for nearly 30 years. In total, 58 people lost their lives on Canvey Island.

In Harwich, the licencee of the Anchor Pub, aware that a particularly high tide was predicted, went into the cellar with his wife to secure the beer barrels.

Once there, water started to flow into the cellar through the outer door. Elsie later told how her husband took her hand saying: “Come on, Else,” but was then washed away from her.

The water came in so fast that within seconds she was swept up the cellar steps and out through the door. Elsie later told how she “remembered being up there but there was [sic] no stairs, just water up to the ceiling”. Pressure of the rising water then slammed the door shut and her husband was trapped below.

The water was about 14ft deep in the cellar and his body could not be recovered until the following Tuesday when police broke through the floor above the still-flooded cellar.

In the village of Jaywick further down the coast Inspector Barnicoat saw the wave, a “wall of death”, hurtling towards the town from inland. Jaywick was hit from behind and the village was isolated, cut off from the rest of Essex, leading to 37 people losing their lives.

Marie Miles, 42, lived with her sister in Jaywick, in a bungalow directly in the path of the flood. On that fateful day they prepared to leave their home. With desperate courage Florence carried her sister, who was unable to walk, towards the window. After getting so far, Marie was swept out of her sister’s arms and disappeared into the maelstrom. Florence survived but Marie was drowned.

To alert the outside world to the catastrophe PC Don Harmer, with incredible courage and determination, set out alone from Jaywick on a perilous journey. He waded in chin-high water to the sea wall and crawled along it by moonlight, in a gale, with deep floodwater on one side and on the other, the sea washing over him. He reached a phone box more than a mile away, reported on the situation in Jaywick then crawled back along the wall.

Some homes were completely submerged by floodwater. In Meadow Way, Esther and James had gathered with their son and daughter to celebrate Esther’s 89th birthday. In the night the sea engulfed their home and all four were drowned. When police recovered their bodies on Tuesday the birthday cake was untouched.

In the flooded lanes, desperate residents clung with their fingertips to the eaves of bungalows until their strength gave way. Whole families slipped into the freezing water and drowned.

Houses broke free from the plinths on which they stood and drifted dangerously loose with families clinging together on the roofs.

One old couple from near Southend, Ellen and George Kirby, clung on to the roof of their Nissen hut singing Abide With Me over and over again. Their bodies were found in their flooded home days later. The father of three-year-old Stuart was a steeplejack who had been working away and returned to identify the body of his son.

The child’s mother later told that she was alone on the roof with her son and when a table top floated by she saw a way of saving herself and her child. Numbed with cold, she placed the terrified little boy on the makeshift raft but within seconds, as she tried to clamber on beside him, a wave swept the raft and child out of her grasp. She never saw him again.

However, there were also stories of heroism among the tragedy. A Dutchman, Kars Pruin, and Scottish welding inspector, Mr Robertson, pulled a small boat over the sea wall at Tewkes Creek and launched out among the submerged bungalows, rescuing people from their homes.

When they heard a baby crying the Dutchman held the boat steady as Mr Robertson climbed out and waded through five feet of water to a bungalow.

The body of a man later identified as the baby’s father was hanging over the veranda. There was no trace of a woman. The rescuer wrapped the baby in his jacket and carried it to the boat.

Linda's 29-year-old mother died at her home on Canvey Island when Linda was just eight weeks old. Her father said: “On February 4 I went to my daughter’s home and found water all around it. I saw a body lying on the veranda under the pram. It was my daughter.”

Baby Linda, motherless but otherwise unharmed, was brought up by her maternal grandparents. Her survival was a symbol of hope at a time of tragedy. However, of all the tragic deaths that night, the suffering of those who found the bodies of relatives, or were with them when they died is beyond measure. Many survivors and rescuers will bear the scars of what they witnessed for the rest of their lives.

The Essex coroner said that it was nothing short of a miracle that there were not more than 120 deaths in the county, although there were more along the East Anglian coast. The miracle was achieved thanks to organisations such as the police, fire brigade and ambulance services and by the stoicism and selflessness of volunteers.

So could it happen again? Surges of about one metre sweep the Essex coast three or four times a year but they rarely coincide with high tides and gale force winds as they did in 1953. Today, communication is better while sea walls and beach management have improved.

The east coast, though, will never be free of the threat of flood and the battle to keep the sea in its place will continue.

● To order your copy of The 1953 Essex Flood Disaster: The People’s Story by Patricia Rennoldson-Smith (The History Press, £12.99) with free UK delivery call 0871 988 8366 or order at expressbookshop.com. Calls cost 10p per minute from BT landlines